Professional baseball team Tecolotes Dos Laredos to return to the Gateway City

By Zach Davis, Laredo Morning Times
| on
November 21, 2017

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Baseball will be returning to Laredo next season as the Tecolotes Dos Laredos will split their Liga Mexicana de Béisbol campaign in Laredo and Nuevo Laredo.

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Ernesto Murillo: "I wonder who they are going to steal from this time."

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Rosa Buffon Rodriguez: "Looks like another waste of taxpayers' money."

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Gerardo Garcia: "Why did they leave to begin with?

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Carlos Martinez: "The funny thing [is] I see a baseball team again leaving Laredo"

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Jose Luis Yepez: "Were the $1 beers approved as well?"

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Julian Villanueva: "NICE REAL BASEBALL!!!"

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Kenneth Pacho: "Fix the streets."

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Pablo Chapa: "The games will get much better, ligas mexicanas..."

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Juan Alvardo

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Rosie Perez: "Finally something to look forward too!!!! Now a message for the city of Laredo.....please do something right for the citizens this time!!! Let us enjoy some baseball the right way PLEASE!!!!"

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Rene Zacarias: "My concern and focus would be more about attendance. I don’t live in laredo anymore but I was upset when the lemurs left the city. I enjoyed going to the ballgame. I hope who ever takes

Rene Zacarias: "My concern and focus would be more about attendance. I don’t live in laredo anymore but I was upset when the lemurs left the city. I enjoyed going to the ballgame. I hope who ever takes over this operation is focused on keeping the team. That will prove to be the harder thing to do."

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Lou Stuhl: "Have they checked with the US Attorney General?"

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Fred Juarez Jr.: "Another scam from the city rats.

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Bobby Trevino: "And nobody goes on the 1st game"

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Peter Arredondo: "I'm an optimist but people don't go to baseball when it is still 100 degrees at 9pm and a cold beer will not do it. Now, a Mexican league team? It won't work when we had a US team. People were

Peter Arredondo: "I'm an optimist but people don't go to baseball when it is still 100 degrees at 9pm and a cold beer will not do it. Now, a Mexican league team? It won't work when we had a US team. People were giving away tickets at the end of the Lemurs games and still no one went.

Gladiator arena."

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Erik Patricio Flores: "Tania Flores $1 beers are back"

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Joseph Martinez: "And let the CITY/city members fudged it up one way or another."

Laredo City Council unanimously voted in favor of a proposal to bring baseball back to Laredo Monday night.

The Tecolotes Dos Laredos will occupy Uni-Trade Stadium for the 2018 Liga Mexicana de Béisbol campaign. Rojos del Aguila de Veracruz previously announced its intentions to move to Nuevo Laredo for next season, and with Monday’s decision, the squad is set to split its home schedule between the sister cities.

The decision was already expected by most. Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz met for a press conference in Nuevo Laredo on Friday as they introduced the franchise’s new logo which featured the name Tecolotes Dos Laredos.

Laredo City Manager Horacio De Leon said the new ownership group will have all rights to Uni-Trade Stadium while the city will be responsible for maintenance of the field. The parties have agreed to a five-year term in which the city pays $125,000 per year for the marketing and promotion of the team. Of that total, $100,000 will be in cash. The remainder will be in promotions such as billboards and collateral.

Laredo will also collect the finances for stadium naming rights and will receive 25 percent of the ensuing ticket sales after 3,000 are sold each game. The Laredo Lemurs, who were shut down before this past season, averaged 3,834 fans their inaugural season in 2012 but only 893 during their last year in 2016.

"You’re a good negotiator," said City Councilman Roberto Balli to De Leon. "You’re negotiating a good deal for the city. It’s a good deal for the citizens. Members of this council and the community were left with a really bad taste in their mouths from the experience with the Laredo Lemurs. Not to put anyone in that organization down but it was an organization that didn’t have baseball experience. The big difference we are seeing here is we are bringing in a Mexican League affiliated team with experience.

"$125,000 that we are contributing is much less than before. $25,000 is in promotions. These are going to be in things like billboards that we already own. And the fact we maintain naming rights, the Mexican League team will allow our naming rights to be more valuable as they broadcast games in Mexico."

The new ownership group, identified as 2L4L Baseball LLC, will be helmed by the Mansur family from Mexico. The family got into baseball in Mexico in 1982 and have been affiliated with the Mexican League since 1988.

After the disappointing way the Lemurs met their end last year and with talk of potential city interference with the team, the City Council made it clear on multiple occasions that there would be no one previously associated with the running of the Lemurs involved in operations of the Tecolotes. Primary owner Jose Antonio Mansur left Monday’s meeting after a few hours had passed before the proposal was reached, but one of his sons, Chara Mansur, echoed those statements with the new franchise.

"We belong to the Mexican League which is affiliated with the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues," he said. "We have never participated in an independent league or with the previous team that participated in the stadium."

Saenz also reiterated numerous times that this team had a “clean slate” with no previous ties to the Lemurs ownership. He asked Tecolotes operating partner Danny Lopez to confirm he worked for the Tecolotes only and did not take orders from the city, which he verified.

While baseball is now expected to return next year, it remains to be seen what the name of Laredo’s home field will be. It was confirmed at the meeting that the naming rights for Uni-Trade Stadium ended with the departure of the Lemurs. The city retained full rights to rename the field in the deal with the Tecolotes and will begin the process of securing a new deal to either bring back the Uni-Trade name or find a new partner.

City Councilman Alberto Torres Jr. stated the city needed to prioritize finding a naming partner to not “run into the same scenario as the (Laredo Energy Arena)” where they continue “to get free publicity.”

The contract agreed upon by the parties was for a five-year term. It also included a provision to be extended by another five years if the city wishes.

Of course, that does not mean the Tecolotes will be there for the next five years. If the team isn’t financially succeeding, the city could end the deal. De Leon added that the owners likely would be the ones contacting them on the matter if there were struggles in attendance.

"The city could come in and revisit as a safeguard for city," Saenz said. "Not that we expect that, but we all think as lawyers, ‘What if?’"

Veracruz was 48-57 this year in the LMB South division in 2017. They made the postseason in the 16-team league, but of the nine teams that qualified, they were one of two that had a play-in game to get in. Veracruz lost 9-4 to Bravos de León.

The Lemurs spent five years in Laredo in the American Association before canceling the 2017 season with only a week prior to the start of training camp. They won the AA championship in 2015 and made the 12-team league's four-team playoffs on three occasions. In the two years they missed the postseason, they finished a half-game shy in 2016 — the first club with 57 or more wins to not qualify — and 1 1/2 games back in 2013.

The Tecolotes de Nuevo Laredo were founded in 1940 and later took up the name Tecolotes de los dos Laredos after splitting their games in each city. They won Mexican League championships in five different years, the last being 1989.

Recently, Nuevo Laredo fielded a team known by the shorthand of Tecos in 2016 that competed in the six-team Liga del Norte de Coahuila. They lost in the semifinals of their postseason to Carboneros de Nava.

“When visitors come in from Mexico, they will be excited to know there is a Mexican League team here,” Balli said. “They will stay in hotels near the stadium to catch a ballgame here. We will get those tourists to watch games, stay an extra day and shop and eat in the area. And the community loves the Tecolotes. Members of the community will be excited about the Tecolotes, and their experience will allow them to be successful and the city to be successful at this stadium.”

Follow @ZachDavisLMT on Twitter for the latest news on the Tecolotes and other local sports.